For a while I have had conversations about how we all like to EQ our tracks. I have noticed that the conversation usually ends with a contest of who has the most fancy EQ plugin. Ridiculous I know but mixers seem obsessed with collecting numerous amounts of plugins that they will probably never use, there are so many out there now that model all different types of hardware that they are downloaded and kept in the EQ folder but only one or two ever used. I have found myself worrying about which plugin to use rather than actually getting the EQ'ing done. I found an interesting article on how these fancy articles are over hyped and EQ the same as any other EQ plugin. It is with the added saturation, distortion and fancy GUI (Graphical User Interface) that separates them from each other. However if I'm going to introduce saturation and distortion plugins further on in the chain or aren't wanting any distortion, do I need them?

So I have decided to keep it simple, limiting myself to use the stock plugins that come with our preferred DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) as much as possible. I decided to mix a drum track I recorded in a previous post with this principle.

Here is the kit in question:

I recorded the kit in a relatively small studio room with little natural reverb, using room mics (seen at the top of the picture) to capture some of the natural reverb to represent the cymbals and give a more wholesome sound to the kit. My mission in mind whilst recording was to show that with a well recorded kit, using good choices with mics and positioning that nothing needed to be replaced with 'fake' drum samples.

I then came to the mixing stage. Using the mixing ethic explained above, I created a video tutorial of how I now mix my drums. Please watch the video below to find out how you can achieve a balanced mix with just the use of your stock plugins.